Directed by Howard Hawks • 1948 • United States
Starring John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan
No matter what genre he worked in, Howard Hawks played by his own rules, and never was this more evident than in his first western, the rowdy and whip-smart RED RIVER. In it, John Wayne found one of his greatest roles, as an embittered, tyrannical Texas rancher whose tensions with his independent-minded adopted son—played by Montgomery Clift, in a breakout performance—reach epic proportions during a cattle drive to Missouri. The film is based on a novel that dramatizes the real-life late nineteenth-century expeditions along the Chisholm Trail, but Hawks is less interested in historical accuracy than in tweaking the codes of masculinity that propel the myths of the American West. The unerringly macho Wayne and the neurotic, boyish Clift make for an improbably perfect pair, held aloft by a quick-witted, multilayered screenplay and Hawks’s formidable direction.
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Directed by Howard Hawks • 1953 • United States
Starring Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles CoburnTwo glamorous showgirls have everything a girl could want—except engagement rings! In a quest for true love, Lorelei (Marilyn Monroe) and her gold-digger pal Dorothy (Jane Russell) set sail on a...
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Ball of Fire
Directed by Howard Hawks • 1941 • United States
Starring Gary Cooper, Barbara StanwyckBarbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper make sparks in this snappy screwball take on the Snow White tale. She’s a burlesque queen with a colorful vocabulary who needs to lay low for a while as the police close in on ...
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Rio Bravo
Directed by Howard Hawks • 1959 • United States
Starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky NelsonBoth one of the essential westerns and one of the all-time great hangout movies, this classic tale of friendship and camaraderie is pure Howard Hawks in its wonderfully relaxed, loose-limbed look at a ...
